To Grow Young Jedi
by lembas7
Summary: He is many things: alone, surrounded, unwanted, and Padawan among them. He may be all or none of them at any time; nothing is certain, from his future to his present. Not even his name. Qui-Gon Jinn was not assigned to Bandomeer when Obi-Wan Kenobi was reassigned to the Agri-Corps. Many futures spin away from that change. This is only one of them.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Fair use and transformative work.

**A/N:** AU of Star Wars Prequels, starting with the Jedi Apprentice books – Book 1. Distinct from my "Unclaimed" series.

**Summary:** He is many things: alone, surrounded, unwanted, and Padawan among them. He may be all or none of them at any time; nothing is certain, from his future to his present. Not even his name.

Qui-Gon Jinn was not assigned to Bandomeer when Obi-Wan Kenobi was reassigned to the Agri-Corps. Many futures spin away from that change. This is only one of them.

* * *

TO GROW YOUNG JEDI

The return to Coruscant didn't take anywhere near as long as the initial trip to Bandomeer. Granted, he wasn't hijacked by pirates, derailed by battles with draigons, or delayed by negotiations with Hutts, which might have accounted for it.

Obi-Wan pressed one palm against the cool transparisteel of the observation room window. Faint yellow-green splotches decorated the back of his hand and spilled onto his wrist where his Master had grabbed him. _The body reflects the mind_, Master Vant had been fond of saying when trying to teach his clan their first meditations.

Beyond the clear barrier, ships of all shapes and sizes waited in queue to enter Coruscant's atmosphere, impatient for permission to land. One small freighter broke away, lights flashing, with an escort from Judicial's fleet. _Low fuel or medical emergency_, Obi-Wan guessed. Only diplomats and couriers were exempt from the wait-times that regular citizens had to endure. The only exception was for immediate peril to life or limb, in which case emergency escort allowed the beleaguered vessel to bypass both official niceties and the wait.

At the curve of the planet, backlit by the blazing star central to Coruscant's orbit, stood the gleaming spires of the Temple.

Once, he might have seen them and thought, _Home_. Even a few weeks ago the instinct had existed. Now, though.

They hadn't wanted to keep him. They didn't want him back.

_"You were chosen as a Padawan, Kenobi, however briefly. A Padawan you will remain, until the time of your Trials. Unless you decide to leave." __Implicit in his reaching his Trials was that a Master would speak for him to guide him on his way. _

_Or that he would decide himself to withdraw, if none did. _

_Home_ was a place that always wanted you. It wasn't something that measured your value, or threw you away. _Or at least it's not supposed to be. Master said – _

He caught the remainder of that thought and held it warm and close, before it could turn into pain.

The Temple wasn't home anymore. _Maybe it never was_, a little voice whispered. It was a place that would shelter him. _Until a Master chooses you. If a Master chooses you._

And how long would that take? More than twelve years hadn't been enough; another twelve wasn't likely to change that.

Obi-Wan's forehead pressed to cool transparisteel; even when he closed his eyes the glow from the planet's surface seeped through his lids to paint the blackness of his vision with oranges and reds.

Surely there were some limits, despite what Master Kurésa had implied. The Order wasn't likely to keep someone who would never be of use; without a Master to train him, there was no way he could learn enough to pass the Trials for Knighthood. Eventually they'd decide he would be of more use back in the AgriCorps, regardless of what tradition dictated. He'd only been a Padawan for a handful of days, after all.

_How long before they throw me out again?_

Not right away. Maybe not even for a while. Maybe, maybe, long enough to learn enough to survive. And he would have to learn. Every day could be his last.

Funny. He'd travelled into the galaxy, almost been killed, gained a Master, lost his home and future twice, and ended up right back where he'd started; almost as if none of it had happened at all.

* * *

"Can you find your way to the Council chambers from here?" Master Kurésa wasn't looking at him any longer; attention on entering information into the pad he'd been handed upon checking Obi-Wan into the Halls of Healing.

Obi-Wan nodded.

The motion caught one of Kurésa's bright blue eyes; while common for a Quarren, the shade was striking against the salmon pink of his skin. "Good." One of the prehensile tentacles descending from the Master's mouth flicked. "Report there following your examination."

Handing the pad back to the Padawan at the reception area, Kurésa inclined his head in Obi-Wan's direction. "May the Force be with you, youngling."

He could only bow in response; by the time the motion was completed, Master Kurésa had exited the Halls – headed to the Council to report.

_I wonder if I'll see him again._

His own skepticism at the idea, a harsh and new thing, obscured what possibilities the Force might have whispered to him. Sitting on the hard bench running along the wall in the entryway to the Halls, Obi-Wan waited.

A Master would have meditated, he was sure. Even a knight or a senior padawan would have taken the opportunity to clear their minds, center in the Force, and seek peace. But he wasn't any of that; not yet, maybe not ever.

Obi-Wan could only reach out, anchored deep, breathing in the Force the way he'd been shown only days ago –

Tears strangled the back of his throat. _Master!_

Voices lilted in the corridor approaching the broad entryway to the Halls – less a door than a gaping arch easily the width of an air-traffic lane. Refusing to turn his head, equally unable to look away entirely, Obi-Wan peeked from the corner of his eyes. Robes, braids, lightsabers – together, the quartet laughed and jostled down the corridor, followed by the increasing noise of beings traversing the halls.

The chrono on the wall solved the puzzle for him; midmeal was being served. The Initiate and Padawan classes must be letting out.

More bodies shifted along the hallway, some quieter than others. Obi-Wan hunkered down under his shields, pulling into himself and making his presence small in the Force the way he refused to cringe in body.

_I don't remember the Temple being this – loud._

It wasn't a noise, but it was nonetheless near-deafening in weight and pressure, only increasing as more and more beings funneled past.

Not one spared him a glance.

Two fingers rubbing gently at the hem on his AgriCorp grays, Obi-Wan was distantly grateful for the reprieve.

Impatience snapped sharply across the edges of his shields, and he jerked in his seat hard enough to crack his head against the stone wall at his back. His right hand ducked beneath his left cuff, finding the faint points of pain lingering from his bruises and _pressing_, seeking impossible physical contact in response to the intangible stinging left by the other Jedi's irritation.

"Kenobi."

Not the first time he'd been called, by the Healer's tone.

_Oh._

Master Che.

Pushing to his feet, Obi-Wan staggered on his first step, his lower back long since gone numb from being pressed against unyielding stone. The next stride was smoother, as was the one after, and he earned only a tilt of the head from the Healer. "Come," she ordered tersely.

The short walk to the examination room seemed to take nowhere near long enough; too soon for comfort, he was sitting on an examination table, samples already pulled and being tested. Master Che _hmm_ed as she ran one hand the length of his torso, stretching out to him through the Force even as she dictated his vitals into his file.

The bruises on his wrist, torso, and legs were catalogued. No broken bones. No pain worse than a particularly strenuous 'saber lesson; at least, not anymore. His wrist earned a sniff from Master Che, a soft length of bandaging beneath a sturdy brace, and a strict instruction to keep it strapped up for two weeks with a prohibition on 'saber training. Nothing else was worth noting; and far, far too soon he was shuffled back to the waiting area, with an immobilized wrist and inexplicable slew of follow-up appointments for Master Kurésa's troubles.

Standing in the entranceway to the Halls, the exam itself blurred in his memory; more a dream than reality. His only evidence otherwise was the plastisteel brace spiderwebbed down his forearm, replacing the torn strips of his master's robe that had previously extended from elbow to palm.

_Council._ Obi-Wan's eyes clung to the sight of gray plastisteel, even as it started to blur. He blinked the sadness away, and rubbed his fingers against the soft cloth he'd snatched from the exam table at his side and shoved deep into one pocket while Master Che's back was turned. _I have to report to the Council._

Whatever that even meant.

Time seemed to have congealed into a moment that stretched, unbroken, into infinity.

_Report?_

What was there even to say? Obi-Wan Kenobi, Initiate re-assigned to the AgriCorps on Bandomeer for fighting, taken as a Padawan mere weeks before turning thirteen. Back now, in the place of someone the Council had actually wanted here, a Master who would never return –

He wanted, more than anything else, to sleep.

Without dreams.

* * *

The lift to the Council Spire was mercifully empty.

He couldn't muster up the energy to huddle in a corner; was only just able to hold himself out of a slump in the center of the lift.

Traversing the hallways hadn't been as horrible as he'd anticipated; most of the dining areas were full and he'd managed to skirt the more populated areas, trading off by taking longer ways around.

It wasn't as if he'd been given a time to report, after all.

_What am I going to say?_

Silence filled his mind.

The few Jedi he'd passed in the grand arching halls and narrower corridors had spared him neither word nor glance. Maybe it was his Support Corps grays; maybe it was his presence in the Force. Maybe it had nothing to do with anything about him. _Or maybe it's just me._

Before he'd turned thirteen, the fact that he'd never caught a Master's eye was a source of despair.

_Focus does determine reality._

He'd never imagined that there'd be a time he'd be grateful for the eyes that slid past him without registering enough to make him worthy of dismissal.

_What am I going to say?_

He didn't have an answer four long minutes later, when the lift opened into the corridor before the Council chamber, barren but for a Senior Padawan – Mace Windu's, Obi-Wan thought distantly – manning a circulation desk.

He could feel her focus in the force, laser-bright, narrow in on him as his feet hit the floor of the hallway. The lift doors closed soundlessly.

She didn't look up as he approached.

Obi-Wan drew to a stop before the desk, and had barely taken in breath to say – _what? What should he say?_ – before the Padawan instructed him, "Sit to the side. The Council will see you shortly."

Mouth closing, he did as he was bidden.

Closer inspection showed stone benches recessed into the windowed alcoves along the hall leading to the Council's chamber, cleverly designed so that they nearly blended into the wall. Comfort was clearly not at the forefront of the architect's concerns.

Obi-Wan sat.

And waited.

The sunlight was nearly gone, shadows darkening the narrow strips of the corridor where transparisteel had been forsaken in favor of stone and duracrete. Dust motes swirled in the slanting, golden rays. A soft tapping noise from the Padawan's station reached him, echoing oddly against the air and uninsulated rock.

The loudest sound in his ears was the air rushing through his lungs.

Nothing came from the door at the end of the corridor, clamped shut as it was against sound and light.

With little else to do, Obi-Wan stretched himself into the Force, the way his Master had taught him – their first lesson. _Reach out_, the soft voice said in his memory. So much kindness, in that voice. _Just breathe it in. _

Sorrow tightened its stranglehold on his throat.

_Give it what you feel. That is the path to serenity. Emotion, yet peace._

_Breathe. Just breathe._

Eyes falling half-closed, Obi-Wan relaxed into the hard stone at his back. Gradually, the sound of his breathing quieted, overtaken by the barely-discernible vibration of traffic outside the Spire's windows.

The Force was a gentle presence along his senses, quiescent, but not still. A short distance away, the Council's deliberations stirred small eddies into the Force that rippled out, lapping against Obi-Wan's consciousness in a way he could feel, but not quite understand. Anchored in his body, he pressed thinly outward the way his Master had shown him – reaching out with his feelings, blending his awareness into the Force. Spreading himself within its currents, and resting quietly there. Not hiding – just not making himself known. _Being_.

The Force churned, foreshadowing a tall figure making his way from the lift, cloak a swirl of darkness in his aftermath.

Obi-Wan couldn't see his face, but shivered all the same. _I have a bad feeling…._

The lift doors opened soundlessly, but the Knight's boots rang a sharp staccato against stone with every stride.

"Master-!"

Rudely pulled from the Force, Obi-Wan blinked.

"Padawan Billaba." A deep voice. Familiar, but only just.

The steps, ever louder, never faltered.

Obi-Wan curled into his alcove, but the full-grown Jedi that passed never glanced his way – unsurprising, given the burst of emotions radiating from him. The silhouette jarred something deep in his gut that had him pulling in a gasp – long hair, proud nose, and stern mouth. _Master Jinn._

Without meaning to, Obi-Wan found himself pressed into the corner of the alcove, fervently glad to have escaped notice.

"_It is better not to train a boy to become a Knight if he has so much anger. There is a risk he will turn to the Dark Side." _

Put him face-to-face with the boy who had beaten Bruck Chun in the Initiate Tournament, and Obi-Wan wasn't sure he would recognize himself.

The Force _curled_ along the line of his hand as Jinn flicked one wrist. The doors to the Council chamber popped open, just briefly enough for the Master to walk through before they bounced closed once more, the motion as smooth as the opening and closing of a mouth that had swallowed Jinn whole.

The chill he left behind lingered.

_It is a good thing, that he didn't agree to be my Master,_ Obi-Wan thought distantly. Qui-Gon Jinn was . . . many things. Certainly renowned for his skills, and doubtless sought after for his wisdom and connection to the Living Force. But if he had ever been kind, he was not known for it now.

Securely shielded from both Padawan Billaba at her desk and any other eyes, he drew his hand free of his pocket, bringing with it a short length of threadbare cloth. He feathered it against his cheek, testing the gentle softness against his fingers. The memory of a warm connection in his mind, of patience and compassion and the slightest tinge of laughter, had him pressing the side of his face briefly against the stone at his shoulder, seeking coolness to combat the heat in his eyes. _Master. I miss you._

A spike in the Force had him tucking the cloth away. Wary eyes darted once to the doors, contemplative. He was not, however, so lost in thought that he neglected to shift to the opposite side of his narrow bench. There was no need to be in anyone's direct sightline upon emergence from the Council chambers; giving up his shield from Padawan Billaba's eyes was a fair trade-off. It wasn't as if she was even looking.

Curiosity prickled faintly as the Force continued to churn, tempestuous but lacking the sudden flares that had prompted him to move.

He… probably shouldn't.

But.

It was certainly better than sitting here wasting time trying to decide _what he was supposed to say_ about – any of it.

Besides, what would they do if they caught him? Kick him out?

_Too late._

The thought ticked up the corners of his mouth, even as he fought and lost against a small smile. It really wasn't _that_ funny.

Decision made, Obi-Wan let his humor fade, and the Force come seeping into the space where it had been. There was a trick to it, one he'd stumbled into accidentally on the _Monument_, with his Master, who'd given an undignified hoot of victory when Obi-Wan had tumbled out of the vision, surprised at his own success.

_Settle._ The Force, so warm – familiar shallows that Obi-Wan had ventured into, but capable of vast depths where mysteries dwelled, hidden only due to the lack of imagination to seek them. It wasn't _reaching_ so much as it was _asking_, and following where the currents could lead.

The trick was finding the right one.

_Breathe._

That, too, was simply a matter of asking the right question.

For a long moment, looking past the darkness of his closed eyes into the nearest edges of the Universe, Obi-Wan thought.

_Just breathe._

Something like a chime quivered through him when he found the right question.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes in the Council chamber.


	2. Chapter 2

"- if you are _quite_ finished?"

"Not in the slightest, Mace."

It was disorienting, knowing they all faced one another but seeing them all as if they faced him. Obi-Wan resisted the urge to blink, and balk – that was what had jarred him loose the first time. _They don't see me. _

_ "Remember, you're not there," his Master's voice was in his ears, but Obi-Wan was too far from his body to speak or nod. He funneled his understanding down the bond, instead of what he'd tried the last time – flinging his thoughts out into the Force in what he'd hoped was the right direction, and accidentally throwing himself out of this state of not-quite-meditation._

Notwithstanding his claim, Master Jinn didn't speak right away.

From beneath the hand pressed to his forehead, Master Windu raised a brow.

Obi-Wan shivered at the cast of features around Master Jinn's eyes. Something hard and unyielding had taken up residence inside the older man, visible only in the lines carved around his mouth and eyes. "I intend to seek him out. The trail starts on Bandomeer."

It would be more time before the name of that planet didn't cause sorrow to well up, like blood from a cut.

Master Ti shook her head regretfully. "That's not your assignment."

"I wasn't making a request."

The wound in his soul seeped softly, a familiar pain; and with absentminded habit, Obi-Wan staunched it with the Force. _What would it be like, to have that certainty?_

Would he ever? It could be a wonderful thing, perhaps, to be so sure of yourself, and your purpose, and that of those around you, to never feel the need to make a request. Rude, however; and easily mistaken for entitled.

Obi-Wan . . . _shifted_, away from what he thought of as his eyes, and toward what the Force was singing to him. The currents coming off of Qui-Gon Jinn held… not the slightest confusion. Master Jinn did not _see_ anything; he _felt._ Something very much like the stone at Obi-Wan's back, in that he simply _was_. In this moment, Master Jinn had fully and completely thrown all of himself, heedless of the ripples. _Or not a mistake after all._

The rock that was Master Jinn, tightly bound and impenetrable, was opaque to Obi-Wan. Uneasily, he looked beyond it, to see where the ripples went. _A boulder falls into a lake. Of what concern to the boulder are the waves it casts upon the shore? After all, it is sinking. _

Master Jinn was sinking.

He couldn't hold it long, this sight-within-sight; though perhaps that was due to a fallacy in his perception rather than any ability. It was all the Force, all the same way of seeing, if he could only interpret it all at once. His mind was just… getting ahead of itself.

He _blinked_ back into the Council chamber, in time to hear Master Giett snort. "Request or not, you're not going, Qui-Gon. Better make your peace with it." _Crèchemate_, he didn't say – but it filtered into the Force nonetheless.

Obi-Wan might have felt a smile at the surprise of it; as it was, amusement was somewhat distant. Surprise hit him more strongly at the mere thought that he could, maybe, feel something akin to happiness.

Master Jinn scowled, changing the lines of his face into something sharper. "Micah-"

"No," the other man countered sharply, one hand cutting the air. "Wherever you think you want to go, you need funds, transport, provisions, currency to get there. All of which is within our power to deny."

"Not if I use my stipend," Jinn countered.

Master Windu frowned. "And your responsibilities?"

Arms folded, Master Jinn seemed to brace himself, weight shifting to the balls of feet already placed shoulder's width apart, one more forward than the other, in a stance of simple readiness. "I think I have more than enough leave accrued."

"Leave, you cannot take," Master Yoda said quietly, speaking for the first time. Obi-Wan studied his face, noting the droop in the old Master's ears. Like everything else he felt now, his fondness for the Grandmaster was a distant thing. _There_, but not quite in reach; and muddied by some particular confusion besides. _Why?_ Obi-Wan thought. _Why did you-_ "Neglected your classes, you have."

That earned them a bare moment of befuddled silence. "I'm not on teaching rotation," Qui-Gon denied. "I haven't been on teaching rotation since-"

Master Yoda's gimer stick _thump_ed the stone at the base of his chair, stopping Mater Jinn's words in his throat. Ears perking, the Grandmaster lifted his eyes to Master Jinn's face. "Too long, it has been."

Everything about Master Jinn _flinched_, in spirit if not in body. "I find it has not been long enough," he countered coldly.

"Xan is lost to us, Qui-Gon," Master Giett's voice was gentle in a way Obi-Wan had never heard. "He made his own choices. You know that."

"Do I?"

"You're here, aren't you?" Master Giett flapped one hand at the room; Councilors, ornate stone, the last of the Coruscanti sun slipping through broad windows as shadows filtered into the circular space. "You've heard enough to know what he's done."

Master Jinn's entire body seemed strung tight. "I've heard rumors, Micah."

"You didn't have to barge in on a Council session if you wanted the full truth, Qui-Gon." Sadness pervaded each word, though Master Giett's every syllable echoed softly.

The laugh Master Jinn let out was a tired, bitter thing. "You would have come to me, then, to tell me Xan has murdered one of our own?"

* * *

_Murdered._

It was Obi-Wan's turn to flinch, his grasp on the Force wavering as his entire _self_ pulled inwards. His own quiet gasp was the first sound he heard in his ears, unnaturally loud against the utter quiet in the hallway and his small alcove. Blinking rapidly to clear a fuzz of blackness from his physical eyes, trying to scatter the images of the Council from his sight, he risked a glance to Padawan Billaba. She hadn't even twitched in his direction.

_"Good," Master soothed a hand through Obi-Wan's hair, pulling him in with one arm for a quick embrace. "You learn very quickly, Obi-Wan." _

_ "Thank you," he tried, fighting back the heat in his face. _

_ He was rewarded with another smile. _

He had treasured that small moment, could still remember the shape and weight of his Master's arm around his shoulders. It would fade, he knew it would; he pressed the memory deep within himself, rather than do as they would tell him he should. _Let it go._

He could, if he had to. But if he did, he would just be so much colder, and alone. He'd rather keep it, in the Force. _Death, yet the Force._

Sadness crested, rising up behind his eyes from his heart, and that, Obi-Wan gave to the Force. Wet heat trailed down his cheeks, dripping off his chin. He clasped the edge of the stone to either side of his legs, gripping and relaxing as he breathed. _Emotion, yet peace._

He didn't try counting the moments that passed with each breath, each rub of his fingers against chilled stone. Eventually the Council chamber doors opened again, and Master Jinn emerged; Obi-Wan didn't bother to look, distantly glad he'd moved when the thought had taken him, so that the Master didn't see him on his way out.

More waiting, then. More breaths, deliberately concentrating on the stone that was too thick to ever warm from the heat of his hands, alternately smooth and rough under the grasping pads of his fingers. _"Stay in this moment. Feel it. Accept it. Soon it will be over and gone, and the next moment will be here. What you do in this moment gives you the choice of what you will do in the next, but do not forget this – every moment is new, and with it, every choice. It is never too late to make a different decision." _

There would never be enough moments between _now_ and when the doors opened, but facing the Council was inevitable. Dread was a waste of moments that were, of themselves, his last chance for peace. His body had run dry of tears before the doors reopened.

He didn't need the polite, impersonal prod through the Force from Padawan Billaba to stand and enter, but he accepted it nonetheless.

Obi-Wan knew what they saw, when he entered the Council's chambers. A human boy, neither tall nor short for his age, in Agri-Corp grays that were wrinkled and stained. He had not bathed in far too long; the dust of Bandomeer clung to him. His injured wrist ached as he curled his fingers to hide the blood not his own that had darkened under his fingernails. He had not been given the time or supplies to remove it. Small, and insignificant, and powerless – he did not need to stand in a different place to differentiate himself from the Council's prior supplicant, but Obi-Wan walked around the spot Qui-Gon Jinn had inhabited, and positioned himself before it, and to the side; leaving only Master Dyas to his off-flank.

Master Yoda wouldn't meet his eyes.

A shadow lined one corner, its edges not quite where they should be. He didn't look at it. Not with his eyes.

The shadow almost twitched.

Safe, then. He put it out of his mind.

"Kenobi."

Not _initiate_, not _padawan_. Obi-Wan looked at each Master carefully as his eyes traveled to Master Windu.

They were here, most of them, to tell him what they had decided to do about him.

_What am I going to say?_

Master Yaddle, and Master Gallia, with the Force in calm waves flowing through them, as if they were not even there. Master Giett, who offered him a smile. Master Poof, who did not. Around the circle, skimming past Masters Tiin and Koth and the three empty seats dotted amongst them, until his eyes reached Master Dyas's, and locked.

He breathed, and blinked – and the sky was on fire. Tiny bodies scattered across the floor, their pieces strewn carelessly across mosaic laid down a thousand years ago. For all the sickening carnage, there was very little blood. Plasma and burnt flesh flooded his nostrils.

_What are you going to do about them?_

The last rays of Coruscant's sun burst across the room, bathing the tiles in blood for a sharp moment before darkness swept over them all.

"_Kenobi_."

Master Dyas was leaning forward intently now, without Obi-Wan having seen him move. The bodies had vanished, but he could not forget the smallness of the crumpled forms. Not even initiates yet. Crèchelings.

He turned his face to Master Windu, avoiding those dark eyes. Master Windu had certainly not wanted him to return and would not be pleased to see him back. Not after making it a certain point to personally inform him, beyond the orders he had received from Docent Vant, not to miss his transport to Bandomeer.

Master Drallig, in one of their earliest self-defense lessons, had taught them. _"To look your opponent in the eyes is an aggressive move, for many beings. A challenge, to someone likely to already be enraged. A provocation. But certainly you must look at your opponent, see what he is doing. To look down or away is a passive submission, and you blind yourself. So look here," he tapped the bridge of his own, human nose. "But if you are not fighting a human, where do you look?" _

Obi-Wan kept his gaze on the bridge of Master Windu's nose, burying the memories of a group of six-year-olds of various species pointing to the places they could look without engaging in eye contact, getting progressively sillier and sillier as the exercise went on. Carefully, he edged out from the shell of his body, dispersing into the Force immediately around him.

"We had a report from your Master, informing us of your change in status," Master Windu informed him.

There was a small silence, but it wasn't Obi-Wan's to fill.

This close to his own body, however, the Force only whispered. He dared to reach out a little more; then again, when in a short breath, there was no reaction.

"And from Master Che," Master Windu was no longer trying to meet his eyes, focusing on a datapad instead.

"Has anyone explained?" Master Giett's voice was kind.

_Explained what? _Obi-Wan stared blankly. _Where you will send me from here?_

Something almost uneasy drifted through the Force, from Master Tiin. Obi-Wan glanced at him, but Master Windu's voice pulled his attention again. "As an orphan of the Order-"

_Orphan?_ Obi-Wan's mind stuttered.

"- your training falls to the Council until a Master speaks for you."

So it was said. So it was also said, that Initiates had until thirteen standard to be chosen as a Padawan, unless they decided to go to one of the Corps or shift to Healer-track earlier. But what was said was not what was done, in his experience.

Obi-Wan couldn't help the tension that pulled each muscle taut; it was a struggle to keep himself spread through the Force and not to curl up. _"What is harder to see, Padawan? Pebbles flung across a field, or a large boulder? If you wish to pass unnoticed, which is it better to be?"_

"That means," Master Giett interjected, "that we will oversee your health and education. You will attend the regular Padawan classes. Your Master had decided your course schedule and enrolled you, before -"

Obi-Wan's back straightened, and he met Master Giett's gaze head on.

"Before." Master Giett's voice softened.

"Master Che has arranged for your appointments with the Halls regarding your wrist, and your broken bond," Master Windu continued. The impersonal tone was – Obi-Wan couldn't say if it was more jarring, or a relief. "Her notes indicate that your Soul Healer will provide us with regular updates on your progress, as well."

_Soul Healer?_

_Maybe,_ a small piece of him said uneasily. The same piece of him that was devoted to pressing the Force against the sadness inside, giving over the pain to a wash of gentle energy. He peeled the Force away for a moment, just to check – pain knifed through him, a quick stab behind his eyes and a slice across his middle, before Obi-Wan shored it back up. _Maybe._

"There are four other orphans within our Order at this time," said Master Poof, head weaving gently back and forth on his long neck. Odd, from him; Obi-Wan would not have picked the Quermian Master as one to try to say, _You are not alone._

Obi-Wan thought of the crèche, of the Initiate dorms, of the Corps – and of the Masters without Padawans, and the halls that seemed so busy; above the dozens of levels of the Temple that had been disused for longer than all living memory, except perhaps Master Yoda's._ There are more than that_, he thought, and couldn't pinpoint where his certainty came from.

"As Councilors, though we have a duty to you, our time is constrained," Master Windu placed the pad on the arm of his chair, attempting to pin Obi-Wan with his eyes. The bridge of his nose met his brow in a heavy furrow. Lines were forming, despite his status as the youngest Head of the Jedi Order in centuries. "Several of us have Padawans in addition to our responsibilities as Councilors. While we will each meet with you individually and make an assessment, you will reside with the other Orphans and also have a joint lightsaber class with them, overseen by Master Drallig."

_"Delegation," Master smiled. "How else would any leader get anything done?"_

_ "Some things can't be delegated," Obi-Wan argued. _

_ "That's right. The question then becomes, what concerns must be overseen personally, and what cannot be? When you know the answer to that, you will know where to find the people – and information – you seek." _

"Your datapad holds your room assignment and your class schedule, though you will not start classes for a cycle," Master Giett interjected.

The silence that followed was expectant, somehow. But what else was there to say?

_You do not want me, but I am here._

_ Jedi_, the Force whispered.

Obi-Wan bowed to the Council; just as deeply as required, but no further. Master Giett seemed as if he had tried to be kind. The rest were simply – what they were. _As I am what I am._

He turned next to the shadow, quietly tucked away from the beginning and less obvious once the room had darkened fully with night, and bowed again – a shallow dip, more insulting than reverent. _You think you see me. So I will tell you one secret: I see you._

Then he walked out.


End file.
